Sam Raimi: 'Horror films need to be believable to be truly scary'

Sam Raimi has expressed his belief that horror films need to be believable in order to be truly frightening.

Raimi - who directed the Evil Dead series and produced The Possession - told Reuters that he approaches a horror movie just as he would any other project.

"The needs of a horror film are the same needs as in any dramatic film. The audience has to connect," he explained. "You have to have a solid main character that you can really understand and relate to. You have to know what they want.

"There has to be a set of believable obstacles that you watch them overcome, and there has to be an interesting resolution."

Raimi also revealed that it's odd so many identify him as a horror genre director considering he wasn't interested in scary films as a kid.

"It's funny. I never liked horror films as a kid! I was a coward and they scared me," he joked. "But, at the time that I was a youngster trying to break into the business there was no scene."

He continued: "There was no Sundance Channel. The only way to break in at that time was to make a horror film for a couple of hundred grand. I literally started in horror just to break into the business!"